A central question in muscle biology is how costameres are formed and become aligned with underlying myofibrils in mature tissues. Costameres are composed of focal adhesion proteins, including vinculin and paxillin, and anchor myofibril Z-bands to the sarcolemma. In the present study, we investigated the process of costamere formation (" costamerog...

An essential phase of skeletal myogenesis is the fusion of mononucleated myoblasts to form multinucleated myotubes. Many cell adhesion proteins, including integrins, have been shown to be important for myoblast fusion in vertebrates, but the mechanisms by which these proteins regulate cell fusion remain mostly unknown. Here, we focused on the role ...

These authors contributed equally to this work *Correspondence: [email protected] DOI 10.1016/j.stem.2012.01.017 SUMMARY Pax3, a key myogenic regulator, is transiently ex-pressed during activation of adult muscle stem cells, or satellite cells (SCs), and is also expressed in a subset of quiescent SCs (QSCs), but only in specific muscles. The mecha...

Among the key properties that distinguish adult mammalian stem cells from their more differentiated progeny is the ability of stem cells to remain in a quiescent state for prolonged periods of time 1,2 . However, the molecular pathways for the maintenance of stem cell quiescence remain elusive. Using adult muscle stem cells (" satellite cells " (SC...